The Ministers of Education and Labour, Stefania Giannini and Giuliano Poletti, sign a Memorandum of Understanding with Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi for school-business integration initiatives

Rome, 8 June 2016 – Today, the Minister of Education, Universities and Research Stefania Giannini, the Minister of Labour and Social Policy Giuliano Poletti and Eni Chief Executive Officer Claudio Descalzi, signed a Memorandum of Understanding for the coordinated  implementation of a series of initiatives designed for over 1,600 Italian students. It is intended to promote full integration between business and educational institutions and is the first agreement between a company and such institutions since the introduction of the Jobs Act and the “Buona Scuola” Good Schooling law, structured around the institutions of the apprenticeship and school-work alternation.

By way of this agreement, the parties intend to reinforce the value of acquiring technical-professional and social skills for the students involved, so as to increase their possibilities of entering the working world, and to develop new training profiles that integrate their education with the skills and knowledge required in the working world. The protocol is based on two types of initiative.

Firstly, the parties will launch an initiative based on the first-level apprenticeship contract, namely a work contract featuring training content, for which Eni is currently developing the materials alongside the Ministry of Labour on the basis of recent legislative instruments introduced by the Jobs Act. It is the first business-school initiative based on the new legislative opportunities and will be aimed at 135 students from the fourth and fifth years of upper school institutions, as well as those from the final year of Education and Professional Training institutes, and valid for the 2016-2017 and 2017-2018 school years. On the basis of the agreement, the parties will implement a training and work programme at Eni’s sites in Gela, Sannazzaro, Livorno, Ravenna, Venice and the San Donato Milanese company headquarters, so as to allow the company, by means of collaboration with educational institutions, to develop links with young graduates, providing qualifications and guiding them towards professions of interest to Eni.

Secondly, the parties will implement a series of school-work alternation projects, involving approximately 1,500 students on a national level: didactic internships on Eni-specific organisational, technical and management themes; study visits to Eni’s sites and other sites of interest within the energy sector; workshops intended to target the personal skills required for work scenarios; and e-learning courses to boost students’ understanding of Eni and the energy sector on a dedicated Eni platform.


The parallel use of schools’ first-level apprenticeship scheme and the alternation of school-work, pursuant to the Memorandum of Understanding signed today, represents an essential pillar of the educational cooperation between schools and the world of work, and makes it highly synergistic to the legislative measures outlined by the Buona Scuola and the Jobs Act.

As for Eni, the initiative reinforces and complements the company's strategy of strong integration with educational institutions, which, even before today’s agreement, made use of advanced training projects in partnership with Polytechnics and Universities for specific issues to the oil and gas sector.